Review of Pride and Joy by Louisa Onomé

*Pride and Joy* by Louisa Onomé (2024). Published by Atria Books.

If you’re new here and found this blog through the mysterious powers of the Internet, welcome! My name is Ashley, and I’m a dedicated reader and movie watcher who thought to turn this website into a little digital archive of sorts.

I was watching and reading so much that I wanted to keep track of it all, so I began blogging as a way to keep these books as memories somewhat forever.

That said, I recently fell into a period of unemployment, and this blog was a solace for me. Not only was it a way to make a little bit of money when there was nothing else coming my way really, but I found, after getting my finances in order, that I enjoyed sitting down to write blog posts when I had nothing else to do in my day.

If you like this review in the end, feel free to click around. This is my digital home, so I’m happy to have you here.

One of my favorite hobbies, that I’ve talked about quite a bit on my blog, is going to the library. I love supporting such a vital aspect of my community, and because I am limited on my financial resources even, it’s a godsend to get all of the new books I want to read while also picking up a handful of movies here and there.

I always go to the new fiction section whenever I’m in the library first, plucking all of the books whose titles and covers interest me. I always get to the synopsis when I find the cover/title interesting enough, and if I think it fits within my taste or if I want to go outside the box, I pick the book up.

This book I found in the new fiction section, and I found it compelling because it was about a Nigerian Canadian family. That’s a perspective I haven’t found in my fiction or nonfiction recently, so I wanted to read the book so I could see just that. I love seeing representation in its many different forms, and I’m happy to check out books like these whenever possible.

Alright, let’s get into the review! I don’t want to ramble too much before we get into the actual content of this post.

While preparing for the matriarch’s 70th birthday, she passes away while taking a nap, leaving behind a grieving family.

There are many different elements to this book, making it a bit of a picture of this family throughout its pages, but its main focus is the daughter of the matriarch: Joy Okafor. She works as a life coach, and her phone keeps ringing for people wanting advice, but she can’t even get a grip on her own life.

She just got divorced recently, and now she has to plan her mother’s big seventieth birthday bash that’s going to happen on the weekend. The pressure is starting to get to her throughout all of these events, but when it seems like it is finally going to come to a close, something big happens.

The family members are beginning to arrive from all over Canada and the United States, prepared to celebrate a beloved family member, but when the matriarch, Mama Mary, decides to go and take a nap. She doesn’t emerge from her bedroom, and when her grandchildren come to wake her up, they realize she’s dead.

This sends the festivities into a spectacle of grief. No one can believe what has just happened , especially Joy. It’s bad enough everything else on her life doesn’t seem to be going right, but now her mother is gone.

Mama Mary’s sister, Nancy, declares that she is going to rise again on Easter Sunday. Despite no one else really believing her and thinking this is going to happen, word begins spreading throughout the Nigerian Canadian community that Mama Mary is going to rise again.

This leads to the local press coming to the house in search of answers, and Joy, who has to plan a funeral, finds all of this getting in the way of her planning. Her aunt is also refusing to allow her to even consider a funeral, as she is convinced her sister is coming back on Easter. It’s an elaborate form of denial she has going on here.

Throughout the course of the book there’s this back and forth about whether Mama Mary is going to rise again, but the real focus on this is about grief, as well as the family dynamics. We really get to know these family members throughout the novel, and by the end you really feel for them and their plight.

Overall Thoughts

I really had no expectations coming into this novel, as I’d never heard of it or the writer before I picked it up, but I was pleasantly surprised by what it contained within its pages! The prose really drops you into the world of the characters and what they’re going through.

That said, I don’t know if this is a book I would return to any time soon (maybe when I begin experiencing the same life events as Joy), but I’m really glad I read it. I genuinely enjoyed it and managed to finish the book in two days.

It’s also a great form of representation. As I mentioned before, I haven’t read anything from Nigerian Canadian authors, and I want to read so much more in the future. It’s been an active goal of mine to diversify what I’m reading, and this is another step forward.

So go ahead and read this if you haven’t already. I’d highly recommend it if the plot or characters appeal to you in any way!

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